Academic Misconduct (No Record on Transcript)

[SeeSarah]

Hello all. There was an issue I had recently at University and long story short, I was charged with an Academic integrity violation.

It's was minor so my grade in the course was dropped and no official record of this was kept on my transcript. 

I have been thinking as to whether I have to select "Yes" to the question of "Have you ever had an academic offence or academic misconduct, or failed a year at, been required to withdraw from, or been denied re-admission to a university" on OMSAS. 

Though there is no record of this on my transcript, the only way a third party (Medschools) can look at this is if they ask my university to disclose is to them. 

My question are;

1). Do Medical Schools ask accepted students to email thier school to verify there aren't any offences written in thier internal records? 

2). Even though no official record of this was kept, do I have to report this in my application?

3). Can this potentially ruin my chances of getting in med schools?

 

Thank you all. Knowledge replies only please, no speculation.

[offmychestplease]

yes you have to report this and yes it can and will affect your chances of admission. No other way to sugar coat it. Hope this was a "knowledge reply."

[rmorelan]

From an academic point of view it is odd there is no record on the transcript. I mean that is the record basically and if it is not there there there is no record.  I suppose minor would mean different things - and the scope of that means would vary. 

obviously if you don't answer the question truthfully it introduces potential revokable offence on your application if it ultimately truly was an academic offense. Any offense like that would reduce your chances of admissions. 

this is the issue with schools doing weird things and not standardizing responses to things. Either things are academic offences and thus should be recorded or they are not and they shouldn't be. Setting up a grey area where something is no longer identifiable doesn't help the broader system, and it makes things messy for individual students as well. 

[bearded frog]

This is something that is fairly standardized in the US. You either have an "Institutional Action" or you don't. It's not quite as clear in Canada. The way the question that you quoted is written, you would honestly have to say yes. The question is if you said no, since there is no record on your transcript, would they know about it.

Well you can lie and say no, but then if you ask for any LORs by professors at your university they may look up your record to find info about you and then mention it in the letter, or if you apply to medical school at your undergrad institution it may come up in your record, and if you're caught lying, you're basically DOA, and it's not hard to imagine that if one med school finds this they may share it with others.

Basically OP it comes down to the risk you want to take. To specifically answer your questions, they don't typically have an official system of asking students to confirm they don't have offences on their records. That doesn't mean there are not other databases that are used in various scenarios. Ethically, you should answer yes to the question you quoted, and similar questions asking about offences. No one knows if saying yes would affect your chances without a lot more details about the circumstances, but I can tell you 100% you would be blacklisted if you said no and the truth later came out, and that could include dismissal even during medical school.

[futuredr_]

If there is no official record on your transcript, then I don't think they would see it. Also, do you know if there even is a record of it internally?

It is upto you if you want to be honest about it in this case since there is no record.

Have you ever requested your official transcript? Are you certain there is no official record?

[SeeSarah]

Thank all of you to so much feedback.

The general consensus appears to be that it's up to the applicant if they wanna report it. There can be a case made either way. It's not as clear cut for first offenders but if a notation ends up on your transcript then you certainly must. 

[cool cool lol]

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[bruh]

I urge you to dig deeper into the details regarding the record of this. Is the record not being on the transcript unique to just you? If the faculty has somehow rescinded the violation in some way then you may be right to not disclose this. It is odd for an academic integrity violation to not be on your record, so I think the truth is that it IS on your record as a student but just not on your transcript, which would make sense. 

This would definitely be something that could hurt your chances, but won't outright screen you out. Everyone is capable of mistakes and if an honest, mature reflection and lesson was learned through the experience, then there may be sympathy.

[bottleofrealfruitsours]

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[Sam400]

Hi @SeeSarah! I’m in a very similar situation now that you were in. Did you end up reporting this? If not, how did that go for you? Would really appreciate the advice!